the c.u.w vote war and endless discssion

[Charles Geyer]

In article <1990Oct23.013425.21701 at decuac.dec.com> mjr at gildor.dco.dec.com
(Marcus J. Ranum) writes:

>	Can we all calm down slightly about this ? It's only usenet.
> Pause to think that the reorganization was to keep "newbies" from making
> "non-wizard" postings in comp.unix.wizards - instead we are plagued
> with endless rounds of comp.unix.recriminations. The signal to noise
> ratio is probably even lower than it was before the reorganization,
> not because of "how do you remove a file starting with '-'" questions
> but because of net politics and policies being placed at a higher
> priority than useful technical communication.
>
>	Don't worry about scaring off the wizards with stupid questions.
> Stupid debates are just as effective.

Hear, hear!!

I used to like to read comp.unix.wizards and mourn its (hopefully
temporary) demise.

As I recall it, the problem with comp.u.w was not the occasional "newbie"
question, but the dozen *incorrect* replies from "wizard.wannabes",
followed by two dozen semi-correct-answers-cum-flames from "wizard.almosts"
followed much later by a polite and correct answer from an actual wizard.

Now really, who was at fault?  The "newbie"?  Or the "wannabes"?  Or the
"almosts"?

Of course, not one news poster in a thousand has any self restraint.
Why should wizards posters not suffer from the malaise?

Charlie Geyer
Department of Statistics
University of Chicago
geyer at galton.uchicago.edu